Reviews
October 21, 2011
The Impermanence of Memory: Alan Hollinghurst’s The Stranger’s Child 5
by Elizabeth Minkel
There’s something so grim about the idea that even books will be forgotten: memory is fickle, sometimes faulty, but shouldn’t something printed and bound hold more permanence than that?
October 19, 2011
Wanting it Bad: The Marriage Plot by Jeffrey Eugenides 4
by Lydia Kiesling
On its face, The Marriage Plot appears to be a novel that mentions a lot of novels without talking about any of them. These facile, knowing references disguise the sly ways that this novel engages with its predecessors.
October 5, 2011
Weird, Wild West: Patrick deWitt’s The Sisters Brothers 5
by Mark O'Connell
The territory he takes us through is bleak and nightmarish, teeming with malice and greed, with violent lusts and blank antipathies.
October 3, 2011
Hear of the Ozarks: Daniel Woodrell’s The Outlaw Album 2
by Joey McGarvey
All this amounts to one of the best evocations of rural life that I’ve read in years.
September 28, 2011
Journeys to the Past: André Aciman’s Alibis: Essays on Elsewhere 1
by John McIntyre
Aciman views the places he visits – Rome, Barcelona, Paris, Tuscany, and New York, among other locales – not with the wondering, landmark-seeking eye of a tourist, but with the speculative, assessing eye of a potential resident.
September 27, 2011
Play It Again: Neal Stephenson’s Reamde 3
by Janet Potter
Every video game has a guiding story. “PLUMBER’S GIRLFRIEND CAPTURED BY APE!” was the original game story, and they have evolved from that into worlds of moral quandary.
